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The Blizzard announcement for the upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft Dragonflight is out. The expansion showcase featured plenty of new additions to the game, including a new race and class combo, along with a new take on flying and plenty of new zones. However, by the end of the stream, there was no mention of the WoW Dragonflight release date.
As it stands, Blizzard is not committing to a release date for the new expansion. Hell, there is not even a release date for the final patch of Shadowlands. The expectation that Dragonflight will even release this year at this point is very unlikely. So that leads us to question when can we expect the WoW Dragonflight release date?
When we think we will get the WoW Dragonflight release date
The safest range of dates we can predict is the first half of 2023. Put it into perspective, the launch of 9.2 was on February 22. It means the raid tier for most is still current content (at the time of writing) waiting to be cleared for heroic and mythic focused guilds. Not to mention there is still plenty of mounts and pets to make through the Zerith Mortis zone. We could see the patch last another three months minimum to ensure players get enough time on the raid.
In addition, we likely have another few months of the 9.2.5 content, where guilds can come back to the three raids of the expansion, plus the new M+ dungeon season. As we now know, the returning dungeons from previous expansions are now a feature of Dragonflight. It feels like Season 4 of Shadowlands is a nice testing period for that content which may shorten or lengthen the season for any feature improvements t consider for Dragonflight. Also, we will likely see the alpha and beta tests start appearing for Dragonflight.
Presuming the length of the patch, this will be another several month-long patch, especially with the beta periods lasting typically four months before they close. It brings a potential end for 9.2.5 to December / January time. Then there are the typical few month periods to get the expansion shipped. Potentially, we could be looking at a March 2023 Dragonflight release date.
The other thing that makes this feel likely is that we got a release date for classic Wrath. That had the 2022 release date written on it. It seems likely that.is at the end of the year, and Blizzard won’t stack up to big launches like that so close together. Considering TBC’s Sunwell content is on the PTR and Zul Aman is now live, we are only a few months off Sunwell, and then the several month periods before Wrath goes live will follow it. That places Wrath around a November/December release date. This adds even more likely hood that Dragonflight could follow two to three months after it, as we have seen with the likes of TBC and 9.1, and 8.2 with Classic WoW launch. This lines up smoothly with the likely end of the SoM version of Classic.
What are your thoughts on a potential WoW Dragonflight release date? Let us know your theory below?
